Since Ben and Joss Beckett took over The Fair Maid and Falcon, they have had to deal with ghosts, gangsters and well dodgy goings-on. Despite that they have their own family of twin daughters and dogs, and a fabulous ‘found family’ of friends.
Stella looked at me and lifted a weary shoulder. “That’s a fiver I owe Neil.”
“A fiver?”
“Yup. He bet me you’d not have eaten since breakfast. By the way you’ve been scarfing tapas he was right.”
I managed to glower at them both. “I just forgot. I’ve been busy. Okay?” Then I had a thought. “Anyway, he shouldn’t have been betting because I reckon he knew I haven’t eaten. Ben will have told him when he ordered tapas.”
Stella poked her unrepentant spouse in the chest.
“That’s cheating.”
“When have I ever won a bet with you without cheating.”
She polished her nails on her chest, before turning a serious look on me.
“Joss. Even with the gruesome twosome away with the grandparents, you scarcely have time to eat. Have you considered getting some help with the children? At least during the school holidays.”
Being too tired to dissemble I told the simple truth.
“Some days I think of little else. Ben pitches in, but he has to be front of house. Trouble is who would be mad enough?”
She smiled. “More to the point, who would you trust to care for them?”
“I don’t know. Who would I trust?”
“Sian?”
“Of course I’d trust Sian. But would she want the job?”
Neil chuckled. “She would. It was her idea. We just volunteered to suggest it to you so there need be no hard feelings if you didn’t think she was up to it.”
“Of course she’s up to it. And if she was here right now I’d probably be kissing her hands and feet.”
Ben wrapped an arm around me and hugged tightly.
“That’s a perfect solution. I’ve been racking my brain for someone who could help you out.”
I leaned into his bulk and let myself wilt a bit.
“I wasn’t even letting myself think about how the heck I could hope to cope with two uber intelligent daughters alongside a business that seems to be heading into the stratosphere. And all the time Sian was right here.”
“She was,” Stella said quietly, “but it had to be her own idea.”
“Indeed it did. And I’m so relieved it occurred to her.”
“Me too,” Ben said softly. “With our darlings due home in three days, I’m going to suggest Sian helps you out generally until the monsters are back.”
“That would be perfect.” I smiled at Neil and Stella. “Can you have her meet me in the office at the start of lunch service tomorrow? I’ve got thugs to feed at breakfast time.”
“To do with the face that sidled into your office this evening?” Neil asked.
“Very probably. For which reason I’d prefer to protect Sian from whatever is about to unfold.”
“Good luck with that.” Neil sounded deeply resigned. “Sian isn’t a person it’s easy to protect. She’s as bloody minded as my mum was, as intelligent as her own mother, and as nosy as me.”
Stella sighed. “He’s about right. Ellen is mostly easygoing, unless her sense of right and wrong is engaged she’s willing to at least pretend to listen to us. Sian isn’t so accommodating, though in mitigation she is as morally upright as her sister, just less inclined to pander to us.”
Ben laughed. “She’s always been like that. It just took you pair a while to notice.”
It was my turn to poke my spouse. “And you, of course, are absolutely willing to admit that your adored daughters are capable of being complete monsters…”
“Of course I am. They take after their mother.”
The laughter did me a great deal of good, as did Neil offering to lock up so Ben and I could get an early night.
I was up well before Ben awoke, and I pottered happily in my kitchen putting together the ingredients for a massive breakfast. When his lordship ambled into the room dressed in the most disreputable trackies and a vest top with a hole near the belly button I had to giggle.
“Why are you dressed in your best, beloved?”
He sort of leered at me.
“I was about to jump in the shower when it occurred to me that I might be able to persuade you to join me.”
I snuck a quick look at the clock before leaping into his arms.
Even with an unscheduled interruption, I was ready with a breakfast to suit all appetites and diets when Jed and Finoula tapped on the back door and Mark’s plutocratic Jag slid quietly onto the gravel out front. Ben did door duty and beverages and soon everyone was seated at the table. I dished up and delivered frittata and bacon to the carnivores. Finoula had grilled wild mushrooms, mixed beans in a spicy sauce and vegan ‘sausage’. Everyone got toast and the sound of mastication was all that could be heard until the plates were empty.
Mark’s father, Jonas, was just as hard and craggy looking as I remembered him from when he was one of Ben’s dad’s neighbours on the costa del crime. He mopped his plate with a thick slice of brown toast and grinned at me.
“Now I know why Don Beckett always raved about your cooking.”
“It was a simple breakfast.” I shrugged.
“Not that simple, and I noticed that Finoula, who I assume is vegan, got a very good breakfast too. I have a friend whose granddaughter is vegan and she’s often lucky if she gets a bit of dry toast and a cup of black tea.”
Finoula laughed. “That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I do know what you mean. And I’ve always had lovely food when Joss is providing.”
I felt myself blushing and Ben came to my rescue. “Excellent though my wife’s culinary skills are, we should maybe stop embarrassing her and get down to business.”
“Indeed we should.”
Mark was at his most urbane, which gave me a heads up that this wasn’t going to be too pleasant.
Uncle James nodded. “You lay it out, boy, you have a gift for précis.”
Mark quickly outlined the happenings since the day a certain ‘influencer’ decided to line up The Fair Maid and Falcon for a bit of extortion. He was as efficient and emotionless as ever, although one could feel his anger that his beloved stepdaughter was being targeted. He looked briefly into my eyes and I could see something bad coming.
“Okay,” I said, “what am I not going to like?”
“As you know, we have been making strenuous efforts to lay hands on Mirabel Proudly and her ratbag of boyfriend. Without success, until yesterday’s storm floated someone to the surface.” He smiled, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m speaking literally here. The caravan in which they have been hiding got swept away in one of the coastal flash floods. A local farmer with a very heavy tractor managed to extract the woman. But there was no sign of her man friend.”
“Okay. So?”
“So, we have had a serious conversation with Ms Proudly and she has been singing like a bird. Albeit one with little musical ability. According to her story, and we are inclined to believe her, her boyfriend took off like a scalded cat at the start of the storm. She doesn’t think it was the weather that spooked him Says he got a phone call that frightened him shitless. Grabbed the keys to her car, backhanded her when she objected and ran like fuck, leaving her to cope as best she might. Or not.”
“Pretty much not then.” I found myself unable to work up much interest in the affairs of a very silly woman, but I knew there had to be more to it than that.
“Pretty much not indeed,” it was Finoula who took up the narrative. “Jonas and James were of the opinion she wasn’t being entirely transparent, so they brought her to see me. Which was illuminating. She is a bit afraid of her erstwhile boyfriend, but a whole lot more afraid of me so I leaned on her. The upshot is that she did quite a bit of eavesdropping and sneaking looks at things she was told were none of her concern. All of which led her to believe that miladdo was being paid by some pretty scary people who are determined to buy the orchard from you. She don’t know why, but she thinks there is something buried there that they would prefer to remain hidden.”
“Oh crikey. What’d we do? Let them buy the orchard?”
“It’s not that simple,” Jonas spoke heavily. “Some other little birdies reckon there’s more than one set of fairly unpleasant people wanting their hands on a small and scrubby bit of land.”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” I said. “We had the representative of at least one consortium call on us yesterday. He was one of those hard men hiding in a carefully nondescript exterior. When he realised we wouldn’t be bullied, he was unhappy. Though somewhat mollified by my assertion that nothing was going to be done to the orchard or the adjoining paddock.”
“I don’t suppose we have any idea who he is.”
Ben shoved a hand in his jeans pocket. “This is the card he gave us. I shoved it in my pocket to show whoever might be interested.”
Jonas grabbed it, and looked closely. What he saw seemed to displease him but he handed the card to Mark.
“Those bastards are beginning to annoy me.”
“They’ve been annoying me for years, boy. But they are too big and bad to confront.”
Mark’s shoulders sagged. “So what the fuck do we do?”
I got the glimmering of an idea. “If there’s a lot of bad guys interested in the orchard, why don’t we rat them out to each other?”
“How do you mean?” Jonas asked
“Well if whoever our visitor works for is so keen not to have the orchard disturbed I’m guessing they think that whatever may be hidden there would be very bad news for them if it got turned up.”
The Brown men stared at me for a few seconds before their faces broke into wide grins.
“It could be just that simple,” Mark said.
“Even if it ain’t it’s worth a try…”
There will be more from Joss, Ben and their friends, courtesy of Jane Jago, next week, or you can catch up with their earlier adventures in Who Put Her In and Who Pulled Her Out.
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